Imanis Data Debuts New Features in Platform Update

Imanis Data on Tuesday announced a major upgrade to its Imanis Data Management Platform. The latest release – version 4.0 – boasts three key features, two of which include enhanced machine-learning capabilities.

The vendor said the highlights are SmartPolicies and ThreatSense Intelligent Automation, both which have enhanced machine learning (ML) capabilities, as well as any-point-in-time recovery for multiple NoSQL databases. Imanis Data hopes to distinguish itself in the enterprise data-management space by focusing on Hadoop and NoSQL environments.

“In the Hadoop and NoSQL space, the platforms are proliferating in the enterprise, but the data-management tools haven’t been keeping up with the innovations,” Peter Smails, chief marketing officer, told us. “That’s to the point where it’s creating a challenge for organizations to be deploying Hadoop and NoSQL because they haven’t traditionally had the tools, from a management standpoint, for governance, compliance and data protection. That’s the problem we’re solving.”

Peter Smalls

Peter Smalls

The two machine learning enhancements are as follows:

SmartPolicies deliver the most efficient way to achieve the desired recovery point objectives (RPO). SmartPolicies is autonomous RPO-based backup powered by machine learning. It’s a model that determines backup frequency and resource prioritization and continually adapts to meet required RPO.

In a nutshell, SmartPolicies take backup out of human hands, eliminating risk and eliminating guesswork, figuring out when to back up data.

“Prior to SmartPolicies, humans had to make judgments and assumptions on how often to do backups depending on service or business-level requirements to meet a recovery point objective,” Jay Desai, vice president of products at Imanis Data, told Channel Partners. “It was a process that was very error-prone.”

Jay Desai

Jay Desai

ThreatSense, an already existing feature in the Imanis Data Management Platform, now includes intelligence augmentation, which allows users to report false-positives only identifiable through human observation. This data is fed back into the ML model, eliminating specific anomalies to make threat detection more effective.

“We’re adding a feedback loop to our machine learning,” said Smails. “Machine learning is really good at certain things but it’s not good at everything. There [are] still places in the world where human interaction and thought in decision making matter.”

Turning to data protection, Imanis Data is extending Any-Point-in-Time Recovery to the NoSQL world. With this release, Imanis says it becomes the first vendor to provide fully automated APIT recovery for multiple NoSQL databases. Enterprises will no longer be limited to fixed blocks of recovery time, but instead will be able to restore data to any point in time, providing the ultimate in recovery flexibility, the company said.

“This [any-point-in-time-recovery] isn’t a new concept but it’s an important concept, particularly for enterprises deploying NoSQL,” said Smails.

Other enhanced enterprise-management capabilities include: expanded database support for Hadoop and NoSQL platforms, including the Apache Cassandra, Apache HBASE, Cloudera, Couchbase, DataStax, Hadoop, HDInsight, HortonWorks, Microsoft ADLS, MongoDB, and Vertica platforms; enhanced FastFind – job tag listing and a browseable catalog – and single-click job activation and deactivation.

Expect to see all of the new features available by the end of the year.

Back in July, Imanis Data’s chief marketing officer, Peter Smails, told Channel Partners that the company is transitioning from a direct to indirect go-to-market strategy. As the vendor formalizes its partner program this year, it’s looking for partners who are all-in on hybrid-cloud services and new modern applications built on Hadoop and NoSQL in the enterprise space.